


Corner of a Foreign Field

by avalonroses



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Soldiers, World War II, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 20:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalonroses/pseuds/avalonroses
Summary: Alfred finds friendship in an unlikely source before going into no man's land.





	Corner of a Foreign Field

Alfred reclined his head on the wadded-up groundsheet, tipping his head to the black stillness of the sky. Sometimes, when he watched the sky, he grew angry, angry at the indifferent stars and the worlds upon worlds above them utterly unchanged by the devastation happening underneath their noses. Sometimes, though, he’d stare long enough for tendrils of himself to seep from his skin and he felt like he wasn’t a part of his body anymore.

The air had long since stagnated with the scent of bitter gunpowder and old, sour blood. Alfred preferred it that way. It was far from pleasant but when he’d first enrolled Alfred had often been crippled by phantom smells of his mother’s kitchen: buttery pastry, overripe peaches and lily pollen. He’d been admonished, unforgivingly, by his commanding officer for his regular bouts of tears caused by suffocating homesickness.

_“Time to grow up, American. Whimpering won’t stop the Jerrys from shooting you.”_

There was a strong chance Alfred wouldn’t survive the night. There was a strong chance most of the men, and boys, in the trenches surrounding him wouldn’t survive the night.

Alfred had expected to feel hideous, festering fear, at the thought of his life and the lives of the friends he had made ending, but he was vacant, as indifferent as the stars. As if someone had scooped him from the shell of his physical being and sent him drifting away from the war, from the earth.

Alfred stood, his knees creaking like the frosted dirt underneath his feet.

He walked past burrows of men, propped up in their trenches like slumbering ghosts, and the sound of sleepy lullabies followed him until he reached his commanding officer’s living quarters.

As he stepped into the underground pocket of compacted earth, he was greeted by a waft of stale cigarette smoke. Inside, Arthur Kirkland was scratching a pencil against paper, seated on a spindly chair and using a wooden crate as a desk. His expression was the usual picture of austerity, his lips ever so slightly pursed and his brows drawn to create creases in his forehead. Alfred hadn’t seen his face wearing any other illustration of emotion.

The American mused, not for the first time, that Arthur looked much like a china ornament in a crowd of bulls. With his slender hands and spatters of freckles across the soft point of his nose, he appeared to be unsuitable for the horrors of war. Which was a lie, Alfred had seen the man in combat and he was a ferocious enemy.

Alfred wasn’t friends with Arthur Kirkland; he was Alfred’s superior so friendship wasn’t exactly appropriate. Not to mention, he wasn’t fond of Alfred – he wasn’t fond of anybody. Ever the stony-hearted Englishman.

“I can see you hovering in the doorway, Private Jones.”

Arthur didn’t move his eyes from his scribblings.

“Is there something you want?” he asked waspishly.

“Just wanted to hear your sweet voice one last time before we go over the top, sir,” Alfred replied, his grin cocky.

Arthur placed his pencil down, his shoulders scrunched up with annoyance. He finally looked at Alfred. His left cheek was mottled with dirt.

It must have been the forced quality of Alfred’s smile that made Arthur falter, the annoyance emptying from his body, leaving him deflated and weary.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to coddle you, Jones.” His voice had flattened, losing its usual wicked-sharpness.

“Do you think it’ll make any difference, sir? Going over the top?” Alfred questioned.

Sighing, Arthur moved out of his seat over to a pan of water that was beginning to boil. His once starched uniform was threadbare and slouched over his knees and shoulders, an indication of weight loss. He took the water away from the flame and rested it on the floor before seeking out his kit bag.

The Englishman craned his neck to give Alfred a long, peculiar stare.

“I am supposed to keep up morale, you realise,” Arthur said.

“To hell with morale. What do you really think?”

Arthur pulled out an unlabelled packet from his kit bag and poured the powder inside into two tin cups. He added the hot water and swished the cups in his hands to stir the mixture. He gestured at Alfred with one of the cups and seated himself on his sleeping bag, his posture stiff. The stance of the ever-constant soldier.

Curious, Alfred ventured further into the room and peered at the offered cup.

“I’m afraid this will probably taste like shite, my mother sent it to me three weeks ago,” he explained.

Alfred sniffed the steam clouding over the cup. It was somewhat synthetic smelling but, unmistakeably, chocolate.

They sat in silence, drinking hot chocolate, and Alfred watched Arthur from under his lashes. His eyes were unfathomable but Alfred was sure there was a sparkle of fear in them. Alfred’s chest warmed when he grasped the intimacy of the situation; sitting beside Arthur Kirkland on his sleeping bag, drinking a treasured gift from his mother.

“No.”

“No what?” Alfred asked.

“…In answer to your question. No, I don’t think it’ll make any difference. It’s senseless, the whole bloody lot of it.” Arthur’s gaze was fixed to his cup.

“I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse,” Alfred replied with a shadow of a laugh. He downed the rest of his hot chocolate.

Arthur cleared his throat, visibly schooling himself into that rigid soldier.

“You’ll survive, Alfred.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Because I want you to.”

**Author's Note:**

> A real oldie, and not my usual style. 
> 
> The title is inspired from _The Soldier_ by Rupert Brooke. 
> 
> 'If I should die, think only this of me:  
> That there's some corner of a foreign field  
> That is for ever England.'


End file.
